


Everlong

by norseblue



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Manchild
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-11
Updated: 2002-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-19 20:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2402369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norseblue/pseuds/norseblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anthony Head played James on the BBC series Manchild. Assume here that Giles and James are the same person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everlong

It was good to be back in England. He'd missed it. Missed his accent not being a novelty. Missed people who realize there are four meals in a day: breakfast, lunch, supper, and _tea_.

And as much as he hated to admit it, he'd missed having a life outside of "the children." They weren't children anymore, though, and seeing Willow, Buffy, and Xander growing up and living their lives, falling in love, getting married, had only made him feel older. He thought that strange, really. He would have imagined having _adults_  to share his life with would have somehow stifled the feeling of "geezerdom" he'd experienced from the moment he'd met Buffy Summers and her friends, but instead seeing them move on with their lives while his remained virtually unchanged only added to his sense of stagnation.

So he'd left. He'd returned England. "The mother country," he could hear Xander say in a remarkably bad English accent.

And he felt just as old, if not older. In Sunnydale, Giles could at least feign usefulness, but it was abundantly clear that he was most definitely not needed at the Watchers Council Headquarters. Sure they gave him assignments; he'd investigate a reported haunting here or there, research some demon they'd run across, but it was just busy work, really.

He'd looked forward to seeing his old friends again. The friends he'd had in school before training to be a Watcher had taken over his life. The ones he hadn't raised demons with, of course.

Gary, Patrick, and Terry. He'd really missed Terry. Terry had reminded him of Ethan, only less self-destructive. Still did, in fact. Only now Terry was possibly more self-destructive than Ethan had ever been.

Terry was divorced now, which Giles was ashamed to admit pleased him. Standing beside Terry as he'd taken his wedding vows had filled Giles with the same feeling of loss as when Ethan had given himself over to Chaos. But Terry seemed no more interested in male companionship than he was in teapot collecting. He was obviously going through a mid-life crisis. How Giles hated that pop psychology term, but Terry seemed a textbook case. Chasing young women and fast cars and spending a lot of money on both.

And he'd begun to rub off on Giles.

Now Giles was the one chasing twenty-year-olds. And he was getting them, too. He was sleeping with actresses and fashion models younger than Buffy and Willow. He tried not to think about that very much though, that these women he used and discarded were younger than the two girls who were the closest thing to daughters he was ever going to have.

But he hadn't been doing much of the discarding lately, had he?

It had been fun at first. Playing along with Terry. Going to the strip joints and the dance clubs. Bringing beautiful women home to his fashionable apartment and fashionable bed.

Every woman so far had remarked on the décor, and Giles had repeated word for word what Patrick had told him, every single time. Patrick had said that an understanding of and earnest interest in art would persuade even the shyest virgin to uncross her legs. Giles had yet to test this theory on an actual virgin, but the women who had been there had seemed more than impressed.

It had been fun, wooing beautiful women less than half his age. It had brought him and Terry closer together, or at least made Giles feel that way.

For a time.

At the end of the day, though, it was all rather empty. Completely empty. And at the end of the day, at the end the night, when he came inside of some beautiful young account executive, he never saw her face. He would have thought he'd replace her face with Terry's or Ethan's or, as Giles admits when he's all alone in the dark of his room and usually very drunk, even Spike's.

But all he saw was emptiness. Long days and longer nights, ever empty.


End file.
